Backyard Detectives Out-Spy the Spies Orbiting Above

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Backyard Detectives Out-Spy the Spies Orbiting Above

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Space is full of mysteries: gravity waves, quasars, dark matter, the list is infinite. Not all of the mysteries have origins in the void, however. Nope, I'm not talking about perytons. Earth governments launch secret spy satellites. One of which, by the way, may or may not be launching today at today at 1:59pm ET.

The government won't confirm exactly what kind of satellite it is launching tomorrow, but the thing is yuge. For one, it's going up on an United Launch Alliance Delta IV-Heavy—one of the largest rocket types in existence. And when the thing goes up, it will join about 400 other secret objects in Earth's orbit that have no public record. The best source for news about these satellites comes from a loosely-affiliated group of backyard sky sleuths who track UFOs with binoculars, stopwatches, and homebrewed computer programs.

From the best accounts, today's payload is called NROL-37, but space sleuths believe it is one of a class of spy satellites operated by the National Reconnaissance Office known as an Advanced Orion. The Delta IV's three huge boosters will push the thing out to inclined geosynchronous orbit—about 22,300 miles above the Earth's surface. Then it will unfurl its 300-foot-diameter dish antenna (for reference, that's about the size of the ISS) and suck up intel from whichever geographic region it happens to be permanently parked above. Where that will be, nobody knows.

Yet. Even spy satellites can't hide from a civilian with a pair of binoculars and a lot of free time. "It’s hard to hide something that you can see in the sky," says John Magliacane, an amateur radio operator and satellite tracker in New Jersey. Just like the moon, satellites reflect sunlight back to Earth. Magliacane is a satellite tracker, but not one of the smaller sub-group that tracks spy satellites. However, he did end up doing some similar stuff during the era of space shuttle launches, upon which the military would occasionally piggyback payloads. "Some people would try to figure out the orbital parameters based on the time of launch and information from previous missions," he says.

The orbital characteristics tell you more than just where a satellite is: It can tell you what it does. For most satellites, this data is public, and published (among other places) on a website called CelesTrak. The goods for each probe is a set of numbers called the two-line element. These are coordinates and time codes noting important things like the satellite's apogee, perigee, time it passed certain latitudes and longitude, how many times it orbits Earth in a day, and so on and so forth.

The satellite tracking community has developed software that will digest that data and spit out maps of where each satellite is, at any given time. "One way you can use that is predictive," says Paul Traufler, an aerospace engineer in Alabama who is also a satellite tracking hobbyist. Basically, this means you open up one of the platforms developed by Traufler or others in the community and look at which satellites might be passing over your location during the timeframe you feel like standing around outside. Which sounds like a pretty tight first date.

Or, if you happen to be stargazing and see something faint and blinky streak past, take note of the time, and also the constellation it passed through. Then take those numbers back to your satellite tracking software and see what was passing overhead during that time. If the answer is nothing, you might have found yourself a spy sat. Which sounds like a cool story to tell on a first date.

If the satellite seems like a spook, you'd best make acquaintances with SeeSat-L, the spy satellite spotter's (a sub-group within the larger satellite tracking hobby) mailing list. "A few words about 'the group,'" writes Ted Molczan in an email. He is a spy satellite spotter living in Toronto. "It is completely informal. There is no leader. It is no one's job to do anything." The mailing list gives members a way to pass along information about what they've seen, so others can go outside and take further observations.

Maybe you saw a light streak through Orion at 11pm in California. You post to SeeSat-L, and Andre in Lagos reports something through Ares at 4 am. "You run orbital predictions, keep refining your elements and you'd be surprised how accurate you can get with a lot of people working together," says Traufler. Of course, these have to be very accurate observations, which some members use modified tracking telescopes to pinpoint. "And in fact, that's exactly how the military does it to other countries," says Traufler. "Except they have more expensive telescopes, more infrastructure, and more automation. And a lot more money." Otherwise, totally the same.

That orbital data is very important, because it gives the sleuths clues as to the satellite's mission. Exactly how they nail things down from there is something of a mystery, but it's most likely the product of digitally banging together a critical mass of space-obsessed heads.

Of course, not every UFO the group finds is a spy satellite. "We keep track of about 400 objects in secret orbits, most of which are long-dead payloads or rocket bodies," writes Molczan. But soon a new satellite will join the rarified ranks of bonafide clandestine skywatchers—once the payload on the Delta IV's tip reaches orbit.